Buy it... if you are prepared for an extraordinarily diverse and
immersive blend of African musical heritage and standard symphonic
superhero music, their interaction constant and inseparable in this
undeniably unique effort.

Avoid it... if you cannot appreciate an otherwise solid musical
narrative because Ludwig Göransson's valiant attempt to infuse too
many personalities into one wildly frenzied score produces an unnerving
sense of musical whiplash for you.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #1,610

WRITTEN
3/24/18

BUY IT

Black Panther: (Ludwig Göransson) Far overdue
was an adaptation of Marvel Comics' character of Black Panther and the
cultural significance of his presence amongst so many Anglo-oriented
superheroes, though with constant prodding of actor Wesley Snipes during
the 1990's, a film for the iconic black hero was long in the works. Upon
the debut of the king of the African nation of Wakanda and his alter
ego, Black Panther became a monumental critical and fiscal
sensation in early 2018, grossing over a billion dollars with ease and
earning near-universal respect from audiences for its exploration of
African heritage and liberation while packaged in typical, standalone
superhero flair. It's an immensely important step forward for black
representation on screen, its nearly all-black cast and significantly
black crew producing an imaginatively positive story of a thriving,
futuristic, African culture tossing aside stereotypes of marginalization
to reveal wondrous success in their racial experience without resorting
to usual, tired depictions of poverty and suffering along the way.
Introduced two years prior in Captain America: Civil War, the
Black Panther character receives his origins story in this film, a
history of the tribes forming the fictitious, hidden Wakanda and living
in technological magnificence thanks to the element of vibranium
gathered from a meteorite. Superhuman powers are granted by consuming an
herb from the metal, and Black Panther and his chief rival, an
American-born soldier calling himself Killmonger, fight for not only the
crown of the land but to restrict the sale of vibranium arms to bad
actors around the planet. The movie managed to supply its intended
socio-political message without compromising its superhero aspects,
making it a potent combination of commentary and entertainment that is
extended, without a doubt, by its music. Director Ryan Coogler turned to
rapper Kendrick Lamar to supply the rap and hip hop-oriented songs
littered throughout the picture. The resulting album topped worldwide
charts in reflection of the film's success, overshadowing a more
surprisingly unique original score sprinkled in between by Swedish
musician Ludwig Göransson. The young composer collaborated with
Lamar to ensure symmetry in the transitions between score and songs;
Göransson did produce one of the songs, but there is no evidence of
overlap between the song, "Opps," and the score.

Göransson was hired for Black Panther based
upon his previous two collaborations with Coogler, the more notable of
which, Creed, expressing reverent symphonic tributes to Bill
Conti's classic Rocky scores while infusing fanfare-like passages
that would perhaps not too ironically foreshadow material heard in
Black Panther. Critically, Göransson, who recognized
immediately that he was personally removed from the culture necessary to
construct ethnically appropriate music for this assignment, travelled
extensively in Africa and immersed himself in a number of regional
instrumental and vocal performance techniques with which to merge the
standard Western orchestra necessary for the genre's overarching
connections. Film music collectors do not often hear African influences
in major feature scores, percussive and/or vocal effects occasionally
supplied by the likes of Jerry Goldsmith or James Newton Howard, and the
more intriguing connections made by Göransson here point back to
brief passages of Nile Rodgers' Coming to America and Clinton
Shorter's District 9 for the closest mainstream references. The
balance between Alan Silvestri-inspired heroics, melodramatic string
interludes for historical significance, defiantly cool hip hop
electronics, celebratory choral expressions of multi-cultural blends,
and a variety of specialty African instruments and sometimes
breathtaking performance customizations by those contributors is, all
together, a recipe for one of the most striking and potentially dizzying
scores of this generation. Whether or not Black Panther functions
for your sensibility depends completely on how well you can accept so
many disparate musical personalities inhabiting one score. The mix of
all the ingredients is paramount to Göransson's complex merging of
opposites, and he generally succeeds. The primary African instrumental
colors and vocalized languages, collected from Senegal, Zimbabwe, and
South Africa, include drums, flutes, harp, and vuvuzela horn; while the
Senegalese talking drums are the most obvious presence in the mix, in
part because they are often provided too far to the front of the mix
over other elements, it's the combination of the fula flutes and
Senegalese singer Baaba Maal that often yields the most intoxicating
results. The vocalizations in the score range from standard cooing to
chanting, forced exhales, and clicking that provide the music its most
authentic ranges of expression.

The electronic layering in Black Panther is among
its more disappointing elements, Göransson supplying the raw, synth
pulses and bass enhancements mostly as means of forcing a dichotomy
between Wakanda and the evil forces around the world attempting to
plunder its precious secret. Most of these passages involve the
Killmonger character, ranging from sophisticated coolness in
"Killmonger" to more varied suspense in "Questioning Klaue," where the
electronic beats are totally overshadowed by accompanying flute and
vocal wails. At times, as in "Outsider," the electronic and percussive
foundation does nothing to extend the narrative. The vocals, on the
other hand, are nearly always a delight, from the straight fantasy
counterpoint they provide for the mythological elements of Wakanda (they
are lovely in "Is This Wakanda?") to the massive chanting and wordless
accompaniment to denote triumph in "The Great Mound Battle." That latter
cue, in fact, contains the most diverse selection of vocal tones in the
entire work. Mournful solo vocals extend from "Wakanda" to "A King's
Secret," the inflection of these cues outstanding; the latter cue's
opening is as magnificent as any piece of film music in the digital era.
The sung pronouncement of Wakanda in "Warrior Falls" and "United
Nations" is infectiously celebratory to the extreme as well. The
orchestral presence, while lending some lines of action to the specialty
instruments, is still highly effective in its applications of strings
and brass specifically. After all, Black Panther is a superhero
flick with an awesome fantasy tilt, and Göransson doesn't miss the
opportunity to let rip with Western-centric guilty pleasures straight
from the Silvestri playbook. The composer rarely lets a sequence of
straight orchestral performance pass without some layering of African
percussion or vocals, however, providing the infusion of Marvel musical
expectations without losing sight of the score's true identity. Some
listeners may object to the fact that the orchestra is reduced from any
lengthy performance by the other elements in the mix, even "The Great
Mound Battle" and "Glory to Bast" interrupting the ambitious rhythmic
and thematic symphonic passages with frequent interludes of electronics
and solo specialty performances. Thankfully, Göransson does manage
to avoid the dreaded churning of string ostinatos that dominate the
Remote Control Productions-influenced genre so thoroughly elsewhere. The
application of brass, particularly French horns and trombones, is
solidly muscular at the appropriate times.

Thematically, Black Panther is quite well
developed, its various identities often matched with specific
instrumental or vocal accents to allow allusions through coloration and
tone alone. While the forces of good in this story receive the most
appropriately heroic representations, it's actually the material for
Killmonger that allows for the most impressive range of emotion in the
score. For T'Challa/Black Panther and Wakanda, there are a couple of
themes that recur regularly, the foremost being the obvious fanfare of
three-note phrases introduced in the latter half of "Wakanda." This
clearly ascendant theme often exists over a chopping symphonic rhythm
that gives it the sound of a unique meter. This identity is littered
throughout the score and is offered in staggeringly heralded
announcements for every victory on screen. More interesting are some
secondary expressions, perhaps serving as an interlude sequence to the
main theme, that are increasingly fluid in their presentation. The first
of these interlude passages follows the main fanfare late in "Waterfall
Fight" and highlights the equivalent announcement in "Phambili" and "End
Titles," where its swashbuckling nature almost usurps the main theme at
its outset. Still, the rising three-note phrases of the Black Panther
theme are simple enough to prevail in the memory by the end, and
Göransson deserves significant credit for conjuring such an easily
identifiable theme to combat all the other elements of the score, not to
mention the song presence, in context. The music for Killmonger is far
more interesting, however, embodied by not only the cool electronic
layering but also the score's most heartfelt expressions on solo and
ensemble strings. The emotional appeal of the protagonist themes in
Black Panther is rooted in the usual ass-kicking fanfares and the
predictable fantasy ambience in cues like "A King's Sunset." Meanwhile,
though, the Killmonger theme is a bit of a bridge between two secondary
ideas, the heritage theme of the Jabari culture (the one tribe not
historically forming the Wakanda alliance), the ancestral theme of
Wakanda, and the urban, hip hop-oriented tone that doubles for the
worldwide villains in the tale. Göransson provides a heartbreaking
theme of yearning on classical strings for the character's familial
connections, heard late in "Royal Talon Fighter," "Wake Up T'Challa,"
and, more dramatically, in "Ancestral Plane." He then boils this down to
fragments for the current despair and hatred in the character, led
repeatedly by a four note phrase mimicking James Horner's famed "danger
motif" from Willow and others.

The Killmonger theme's modern incarnation takes hold in
"Killmonger," where the traditional African flute and vocal accents give
way to a thumping bass, tapping loop, and octave-hopping flute effect
resulting from menacing expressions of the four-note variation on the
theme. By the performance of the idea at 2:23 in that cue,
Göransson offers full brass and choral force to the scene. In
"Killmonger's Challenge," "Killmonger's Dream," and especially "Burn It
All," the composer really extends the theme into memorable stylistic
territory. To haunt the character, there is even an ascending,
keyboarded mystery motif and echoing primal scream that accompanies the
character's troubles. The theme dissolves into redemptive sadness in "A
King's Sunset." Of the secondary themes in Black Panther, the
ancestral meanderings for Wakanda on acoustic guitar in "Wakanda
Origins" and "Ancestral Plane" are easily missed amongst everything
else, but it's impossible not to notice the theme for the Jabari tribe.
This idea is more of a percussive rhythm than anything else (though
there is a cyclical, descending melody for them), with the slapping
percussion, jarring staccato vocal jabs, and growling vuvuzela horn
heard whenever that culture makes an appearance. While introduced in
"The Jabari," the idea is fully realized early in "Waterfall Fight" and
returns later in the story in "Entering Jabariland" and "The Jabari Pt
II" as debts are repaid. The horn in particular, blasting itself into
the forefront of "Waterfall Fight" and "The Jabari Pt II" while hinted
late in "Entering Jabariland" and early in "Wake Up T'Challa," is truly
incredible in either a wonderful or terrible way. While commendable in
some fashion, the sound is so wretchedly overbearing that one can only
think of a malfunctioning wood chipper during its performances,
encouraging other listeners to flee the room in pain. For the best dorm
room prank material, start "Waterfall Fight" at the 0:26 mark at maximum
volume at 4:00 am for your roommates' ultimate pleasure. If you survive
the event, use the start of "The Jabari Pt II" the following night.
These passages are intellectually interesting but they really are
borderline intolerable. In the end, however, the whole of the Black
Panther score is defined by the remaining, well-mixed ethnic layers
and a solid thematic narrative. The 95-minute digital album definitely
needs some trimming, too; parts of it do languish. A score of this sonic
diversity is poorly served by lossy presentations; fortunately,
high-resolution download purchase options were added a month after
initial release. This score joins the previous year's Thor:
Ragnarok by Mark Mothersbaugh as another fantastic diversion from
the norm in the Marvel Cinematic Universe without sacrificing the
genre's core necessities. ****@Amazon.com: CD or
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